Tag Archives: culture

International Woman’s Day is a holiday that just occurred in March 8. This may come as news to the international bride seeker because this holiday isn’t celebrated in the West. It was typically celebrated in countries of the former Soviet Union in honor of the sacrifices that women have made for the home land. So the holiday carried some political significance when communists ruled the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

Nowadays, the holiday lost some of its political significance but Russian women, as well as other women in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union still treat this as a special holiday where men give them gifts and flowers. So as a bride seeker, you must remember this holiday. It’s likely that your woman has dropped you hints of the upcoming day in your correspondence with her.

You are expected to buy her a gift for this special day. Yes, you just celebrated Valentine’s Day with her, and yet, there’s also another female-centric holiday that you must celebrate less than a month away. It can drive you crazy. I know. But this is something that we men must do for love.

There are many flower and gift delivery services on the internet that you can use, so you can’t use distance or the language barrier as an excuse. If you are corresponding with a girl through a marriage agency then the agency can also help you arrange a gift delivery for her.

In the end, if you don’t give your Russian girls something on this day, or let it pass unremarked, then you are dead meat! It will put a damper on the relationship and she may think you aren’t serious. So send her some flowers at least, and make sure you send them in odd numbers (1,3,5,etc). I know that a dozen roses is considered a romantic gift in the West, but in Russia it is a bad omen. Flowers given in even numbers are reserved for funerals. This would be the only thing you should keep in mind when giving flowers to a Russian woman.

Kiev always had a special place in my heart. When I decided to look abroad for a wife, Kiev was the first city I visited. It was exciting to travel and meet the first girl that I was corresponding with over the internet. Kiev is a very charming city with beautiful churches and a lot of history. The parks were nice to walk through and very romantic. At the time I visited, Ukraine was celebrating their Independence Day and I watched a spectacular fireworks show on Independence Square in the city center.

Firework show at Freedom Square during Ukrainian Independence Day

The relationship with the girl I visited didn’t work out. She was one of those girls who felt that the best way for us to bond was to go on a shopping spree at my expense. Things didn’t last to much longer between us after that and it was a long trip home, but it seems that Kiev has a special place in my heart.

My first trip was several years ago, long before the revolt that would run President Yanukovich out of the country and lead to war with the Russians/Separatists in the east of Ukraine. I have recently returned, and while the city seems to have retained much of it’s charm, it’s baring some scars of it’s recent turmoil.

For one thing, it is nearly 25 grivna for a dollar. This is a big jump from the 8 grivna per dollar that I received when I first visited Kiev and the 13 grivna per dollar when I visited Kharkov last year. This makes things very affordable and cheap for Americans, but it’s distressing to know that Ukraine’s economy is teetering in the brink of collapse. Ukrainian ladies will likely be distressed also and reevaluate their future and consider moving abroad for the right man. Kiev has a reputation among bride seekers of being an overfished location, but I sense a change in attitudes during my recent visit and I think Kiev should be added to your list.

Other scars are much more physical. Independence Square is very much the same from when I last visited, but seems to be a shadow of its former self. There are broken windows that were hastily repaired with whatever panes of glass that could be salvaged. Granite facades have been cracked, broken and lost. Paving stones have been plucked from sidewalks and foundations and carried off. For example an interesting monument that I visited during my first trip showed mile markers and directional arrows designating distances to various cities throughout the world.

Mile marker as seen during my first visit to Kiev

Today, that mile marker has been picked clean of stones.

Mile marker with missing stones

Remember it has been at least 14 months since the assembly of Ukrainian people at Independence Square demanding change in their government. However, if you’ve heard nothing from the news about the recent past, you can tell that something happened here and the authorities seem to be too preoccupied to do repairs.

Kiev Connections Apartments

It’s not just public areas that seem to be in decline. I reached out to Brett Ousley from the Marriage Agency, Kiev Connections to rent an apartment. The girl I was meeting wasn’t from the agency but Brett and I had a nice dialog over email where he answered a lot of my questions about his agency and conditions in Kiev.

Unfortunately, I didn’t ask Brett about the conditions of his apartments. I should have because the apartment I was living in was atrocious. Don’t misunderstand me. I’ve cautioned my readers that Western standards really means conditions you might see in Western Europe, but Americans should still find this adequate. I’ve been on my mission for a foreign bride for several years and this took me to many cities and apartments. The apartment that I ended up getting was the worst apartment that I ever rented. Tile was lose and popping from the floor. Many of the lights weren’t working. Furniture was stained and threadbare. The standing shower was no longer working because wire was tying the doors shut. It seemed to be this way for a while. You were forced to use a handheld shower head in the bathtub. The towels actually seemed like they came from a hotel that went out of business right after the Berlin Wall fell. Fortunately, there was hot water or else the place would be unlivable. And toilet paper, there was barely enough toilet paper.

When I asked about Brett, I was told by Tanya (the site claims she is a Matchmaker, but she’s really just an office manager) that Brett has been in the states for a while, so Brett is managing the business remotely. I don’t even want to guess when was the last time he’s seen his apartments. But if they look anything like the one I was in, then he needs to fix them up, pronto! I would also suggest that he move back to Ukraine. I don’t see how you can manage an agency from the states and uphold the same standards that resulted in him gaining such a great reputation among other bride seekers.

The silver lining is with Kiev Connections’ driver. If you use Kiev Connections, ask for Victor to pick you up at the airport. He has great ideas about romantic places to take your ladies and gives some pretty solid advice on how you should act and behave with them. Most of the advice can be summarized as being the man and be willing to lead. A Ukrainian woman has to be able to look up to and respect her man. I agree with this advice, so don’t be afraid to pick his brain.

Considering all that has happened before and during my trip to Ukraine, I met a girl that seems to be an angel and took the setbacks with grace. So I would consider this trip a happy one and feel that the future is bright. No matter what Kiev has been through, it will be a special city in my heart.

You’re dating your Russian or Ukrainian girlfriend and everything is going so well between you two, that she invites you home to meet with her family. Now what?

You might think that you’re in like flint but Russian women rarely make significant decisions, like who she is choosing for her man, without getting her family’s opinion so you must make a good impression if you hope to continue dating her.

A visit to her family’s home isn’t a strictly formal affair but there are some cultures or customs that you must be aware of. This article from The Medeleyev Journal has a lot of good advice. It’s a blog written by a Western journalist that has done a lot of work in Russia and ended up marrying a Russian woman. His blog is very insightful and worth a look.

I would also add that your Russian girlfriend or any interpreter that you bring with you to meet her family will be aware that you’re in a foreign country and might not be aware of all the customs. So if they have any advice or suggestions for you, it’s a good idea to listen and follow their suggestions. Your girlfriend would want this to work out as much as you do and wouldn’t want you to look foolish in front of her family.

Second, you will be expected to bring a gift for the hostess and this might end up backfiring. I’ve dealt with some traditional cultures before and the families of such cultures often live modestly, but a more affluent American may want to show his generosity and not appear stingy and will risk offending the host by overdoing it. In America we like to keep up with the Joneses, but in more traditional cultures this is showing off and it’s a big turnoff. Giving an extravagant gift to a host might be seen as you rubbing your success in her face. So it’s best to keep it simple in this situation.

A rule of thumb that I’ve always found useful: Your gift should not exceed your host’s ability to reciprocate with a little bit of effort. This rule applies well in almost any gift-giving situation. In America, people often agree to a price limit when it comes to giving gifts during holidays which is a more explicitly articulated idea of my rule of thumb. This doesn’t mean you should expect your host to reciprocate at that moment in this case. You’re being invited to his or her home, after all. But keeping this rule in mind will keep you from overdoing it.

I was fortunate to be involved in an amicable divorce with my ex-wife but this doesn’t mean that I’m unaware of how dysfunctional the practice of family and divorce law is in the USA. I just got lucky, that’s all!

“I don’t want to die, I want to live. But I can’t live with this torture.”

You’d think after hearing somebody say this, that they must be dying from some horrible disease or was maimed on the battlefield, but no. His wife of about 25 years decided to divorce him, use restraining orders to expel him from the home where he couldn’t conduct business from his home office, use trumped-up charges of abuse to deny visitation rights for his children and win a divorce settlement and alimony that is equivalent to 75% of Martin’s monthly income!

Life was going well for Martin, he built up a business worth millions of dollars, a nice home and raised some nice, well-behaved children. At 50 years old he was looking forward to finally winding down and enjoying retirement with his wife while traveling. But based on the whims of his wife, Martin’s life is ruined. The divorce process left him so demoralized that he tried to commit suicide. Martin went from being a man with everything to live for down to nothing to hope for.

If you think that things can’t get any worse than consider the life of Jordan Appel. Much like Martin, Jordan married, built a home and successful business, raised a family and became a respected member of the community. That is until his wife took up a lover and divorced him. Jordan’s divorce worked out much the same way. He was thrown out of the house he had built and has to work 70 hours a week to afford the alimony payments he has to make to his wife who is working part-time and sleeping with her new lover in the house that Jordan built. One day Jordan noticed his personal items that were left in the house being thrown in the trash. It’s like he never existed!

The experiences of men like Martin and Jordan violate so many concepts of justice that it would take a book to enumerate them all. The psychiatrists and social scientists interviewed in the article have labeled the condition Sudden Divorce Syndrome. Apparently getting served with divorce papers by your wife after spending prime years making a living and raising children to a self-sufficient age is hazardous to a man’s health! Go figure!

So how is a man suppose to avoid this fate? John Gottman, PhD has this to say:

That means husbands (and wives) should direct at least five positive remarks or actions to their spouses for every negative one. Any less and the marriage is in trouble.

Dr. Gottman, you’re a dumbass. But you’re not as big an idiot as Howard Markman, PhD who says:

…husbands should attune themselves to their wives’ “bids” — for attention, for affection, for all the things that sustain a relationship — and do their best to provide for them. In truth, husbands are not built for the demands that wives often place on them; they are less inclined to talk things out or to display emotion. But then, marriage isn’t easy for either party. When a wife wants out, it is usually not out of selfishness or senseless cruelty. Sometimes the love simply runs out. Husbands should do what they can to keep that love alive. That way, they might hang on to the many delights that marriage affords and spare themselves the countless horrors that divorce can bring.

You gotta be kidding me! After all the torture that men like Martin and Jordan have endured, you still have the audacity to say that it’s the man’s fault? As researchers and men of some influence in relationships and family law, you can’t once call out a spoiled cunt for who she is??? You can’t advocate for reform in family and divorce law so that men like Martin and Jordan can get a fair shake??? You guys are pond scum!

I don’t put this all on dumbasses like Drs. Gottam and Markman. They are a product of our times and how dysfunctional our view of marriage and relationships truly is. I’d like to think that I can take men like Martin and Jordan down to the local battered woman’s shelter and these women would be tripping over themselves at having a shot with successful, middle-aged men who are good with kids, but I doubt these guys would get a second’s consideration from women who habitually hook up with losers. Not like Martin and Jordan would want them either with all the baggage and neurosis those women would bring–damaged goods and all.

The Decembrists

In December of 1825 Tsar Alexander I of the Russian Empire died, but instead of the crown passing to Constantine who renounced it, the crown passed on to his younger brother, Nicholas I prompting a revolt among the imperial army who refused to swear allegiance to the new czar. The revolt was poorly coordinated and led and was easily crushed. Since the revolt occurred in December, the 3000 soldiers and officers that revolted were called the Decembrists.

Some of the ring leaders were executed by hanging but many of the others were sent into exile to work the mines in Siberia. Many of them were married and had families, but the new Czar decreed that the wives of the guilty may be considered widows and may remarry as they wish. They didn’t.

Maria Volkonskaya was, by any measure, living a real life fairy tale. She was the daughter of a famous and well-respected general married to a prince and raising a child. As any fairy tale goes, she was living “happily ever after”. When the Czar’s decree allowed her to remarry while her Decembrist husband was sent to Siberia in chains, she not only refused, she joined her husband renouncing all her possessions and titles. Nor was she allowed to return and was made to sign a statement to that effect. She even had to leave her newly born child behind.

Historically, Russian justice has been harsh and draconian. You probably have heard about the gulag under Stalin’s reign, but that was simply a continuation of a long line of brutal Russian justice that probably originated with Ivan the Terrible. Sure, as long as you stayed out of the way of the Russian ruling elite, you probably could live a normal life, but even that was no guarantee. Just ask any kulak. In the US we tend to glorify our triumph and settlement of the western frontier, but a Russian has no such delusions about Siberia. So Maria’s commitment to follow her husband to Siberia carried many unknown risks and she was fully aware of the life she was giving up in the process, including her child.

Maria was not a fluke in any way. Nor was she crazy. There were many such women who were born or married into a privileged life and gave it all up to follow their husbands to a harsh and unknown future. There were some tragedies in their new life, but in the end, the Decembrists and their wives flourished in Siberia. Their lives were the equivalent of making lemonade from lemons and would be a model and inspiration to anybody who is struggling in life. They became known as the Decembrist Wives and they are revered in Russia. They symbolize complete and utter devotion to their husbands.

I wish I can meet men like Jordan and Martin and tell them about the Decembrist wives and give them some hope that there are such women that are so devoted to their men that they are willing to leave their life of luxury to be with them. Jordan and Martin’s wives ditched them over flimsy pretexts and took them for everything that they had. Maria Volkonskaya left a life of privilege and even left her infant child for Christ sakes!

It may not be fair or realistic to compare women to the Decembrist wives. But if women had even half of the character that the Decembrist wives had, then relationships will be a lot happier.

Men, might suggest to me that this happened almost 200 years ago and times have changed and any RW brought here would end up just as corrupted under our divorce laws as the AW who married men like Jordan and Martin. Perhaps, but consider what a RW would be giving up to marry you and emigrate to your country. She is leaving her country, her family and everything she knows for an unknown future with you. History repeats itself, so choose wisely and respect her for the sacrifice she is making and I’m sure you will have a loving and devoted wife. I’m betting on it!

I recently had a taste of Russian patriotism during a discussion with a RW over Facebook. We made contact on a Russian dating site a year or so back. She was a sassy woman which I liked, but for one reason or another, I had excluded her as a romantic prospect. We did correspond and exchange enough information to be friends and contacts on Facebook and Skype and we kept in touch periodically during birthdays and holidays…that is until this past week.

At this point, Russian forces had occupied Crimea with talks of sanctions being implemented by the West, and the residents of Crimea voted overwhelmingly to break away from Ukraine and join the Russia Federation. I like a good political discussion, normally, but thought it would be wise not to discuss politics with the RW that I correspond with. To be frank, I don’t know very many women that can discuss politics without being personally offended. They are simply too emotional about it. And when you consider foreign women from a different culture and language barriers, well, it simply isn’t worth the trouble of explaining the different nuances.

But my RW, Elly, decided to post her opinion on Facebook. It had the tone of a rant like she was frustrated trying to justify the actions of her country and no longer wanted to endure the criticism of Russia’s actions against Ukraine. She claimed that Crimea was originally Russian territory and the people’s opinion to want to join Russia should be respected.

Now, I certainly have concerns about Russia’s actions. But I decided to take a different tone when I replied to her. I brought up two points:

Crimea used to be part of Russia but it was given to the Ukraine SSR by Kruschev and it was later recognized internationally as Ukrainian territory after the breakup of the Soviet Union. A referendum and Russian legislation to annex Crimea isn’t good enough to legally return Crimea to Russia. The Ukrainian government must also consent and sign a treaty to the effect, which they don’t have.

Putin will not want to establish the precedent of letting voter referendums decide matters since I’m sure the Russian Republics of Chechnya and Dagestan would certainly vote to leave Russia. Or that other Russian citizens might want to vote on their own regional governors or leaders in the Duma.

I didn’t go any further than this in my response. I wouldn’t even call it a criticism of Russia. But Elly wouldn’t have it. She flew in a tirade about how I don’t know anything about Russian history and she doesn’t want to talk politics with me. In retrospect, I probably took her comments about me not knowing history a little too literally and was trying to defend that what I had said in my two points about Russia and Ukraine was factually correct. Of course this was fruitless, but foreigners have been mocking American’s apparent ignorance of history and geography for a little too long and I was getting tired of it.

Our dialog only went on a couple more exchanges until she promptly unfriended me and blocked me. So I can’t even copy the conversation verbatim to let the reader decide for himself which one of us was the most crazy. Needless to say, my impression that women can’t discuss politics has been validated. In retrospect she was probably trying to tell me that, as a foreigner, I had no business commenting on Russian matters rather than me not knowing history. I also don’t think the language barrier was an issue since she spoke and wrote English fluently enough to grasp the nuances and discuss complicated subjects. I also know in previous conversations that she doesn’t care for Putin that much. But perhaps Crimea and Chechnya are sore spots for Russians and they probably don’t like discussing it with each other, not to mention foreigners. So these topics can cause a lot of strife in Russia much like the topics of abortion and “Obama Care” have for us in the USA.

It’s hard for me to say if I would ever back down from a person that criticizes the USA or Americans, but I doubt a bride seeker would encounter a RW that would be rude enough to do this unless she knows him extremely well. Naturally, politics should be a topic to avoid in your correspondence with RW and that’s doubly true for recent events like the Russian annexation of Crimea or the Chechnya Wars that have potential to be polarizing subjects, even in their own country. Just a thought…

Evolutionary Psychology often describes men as being hunters and women being gatherers. Anybody who doubts this theory would only need to visit a local shopping mall anywhere in the world and people-watch to verify this fact. It’s easy to see that men, by themselves, will walk directly to the appropriate sections of the appropriate stores to snatch a few items and go to the cashier to immediately pay for them. Women will stroll through and take a tour of the place while browsing through the material offerings and perhaps leave without buying a damn thing.

If there is a man and woman in the mall as a couple, this scene is typical:

In the past, I’ve tried to find some enjoyment in shopping with a woman, sometimes successfully. I wasn’t shy about giving honest opinions about what fashions I thought were sexy and accentuated her features. Sometimes they listened and I got to suggest some fashions that she would try on in the fitting rooms. It was like I had my own private fashion show with her as I directed her turns and poses in front of mirrors in clothes that I picked out for her. It was joy I was able to extract out of three hours even when she wouldn’t buy anything. If it was swimsuit season, things got even better!

I thought that I was a clever one. I found a way to enjoy the activity, and surely, I was able to score some brownie points in the process. Nah! Take a step outside yourself while your shopping with your girl and observe. See that man trotting behind your girl like some type of golden retriever? That’s you!

It’s difficult to see how emasculating it is for a man to go shopping with his woman. Seriously, it might be some test women do to see how much a man can tolerate. I first got a clue during some previous trips to Ukraine and Russia. I know that I’ve spoken previously about how great RW are, and it’s often true. But they can also be full-blown mercenaries! Try taking them shopping. They’ll put an American woman to shame in terms of greed.

I remember one particular incident with a girl I visited in Kiev some years ago. It was my first trip to the FSU. Things seemed to go well for the first few days until she took me to an electronics store and started picking out new carrying cases and memory cards for her camera and expecting me to buy them. There was no discussion before hand about me buying these for her. I helped her with some groceries a day or so prior and I have been covering dating expenses up until this point. We may have shared a few kisses but we did not have any sex yet. There was no reason for her to presume that she can take me to a store and have me buy her items that she’d pick out. No American woman would have this audacity. It’s simply rude.

I ended up paying for the items she picked out. It only set me back $150 but I was pissed. I brought up the issue at dinner and she played the culture card about how men are expected to pay for everything and make his woman happy. But even other Russians will say that this is going too far. Needless to say, our relationship didn’t make it past the night. It wasn’t so much the money, it was the attitude and expectations she had. And I felt very self-conscious about getting into an argument with her in the store in where other patrons and employees would be watching so I payed to show some discretion in public. But I still felt all eyes in the store watching me as a foreign man getting verbally whipped by a young Ukrainian that was barely 5 feet tall! It was humiliating.

In retrospect, I should have stood up to her and simply leave the store and see if she followed me or not. But it was hard. You try saying “no” to a knockout that’s dressed to the nines and made up like she was about to walk on a catwalk. She had golden chestnut hair and piercing green eyes set into a heart-shaped face with large breasts on a petite frame.

This petite bombshell from Kiev tries to get me to buy her some electronics to prove my manliness!

Let’s see if any of you Americans who’ve never dated such a woman come to a foreign country and say “no” to that. If you did, you would be a better man than me. If you don’t, then don’t worry. With additional trips you’ll get better at dealing with such gorgeous women that hold your mental faculties in check by simply batting their eyelashes. The good news is after dating enough in the FSU, beautiful women will seem ordinary to you and you can risk disappointing a gold-digging mercenary while knowing that you can bump into another hottie around the corner in 5 minutes. Until you get to this point of proficiency in your love life, just follow one simple rule: NO MORE SHOPPING SPREES! Tell her it’s not your custom. Tell her you hate shopping worse than going to the dentist, even if you don’t mind shopping like I do. I found it saves a lot of trouble and you avoid being emasculated in public.

I’ve told this story to more experienced bride-seeking veterans since then. They are practically unanimous in the opinion that I probably would have had sex with her later that evening if I kept my mouth shut about it. It’s not to say I wouldn’t enjoy that, but it would be playing with fire. I couldn’t imagine how much it would cost me in terms of money or dignity. But if you think that your game, go ahead and try it. I’d be interested in hearing how well it turned out for you.

I would suggest not even going shopping with any woman, even an American woman. It’s just not worth it. That emasculating feeling is real and it’s hard to expect that the woman you are with will think any better of you as your following her around the mall all day holding her purse.

A dozen roses may be considered one of the most romantic gifts for a woman in America, but in Russia and other countries in the FSU, it’s considered bad luck. Despite your best intentions, your romantic overtures will face a serious setback.

Don’t give flowers in even numbers!

This is because in Russia, flowers in even numbers (numbers that end in 0,2,4,6 and 8) are reserved for funerals. Giving these numbers to a girl would condemn your chances with her to the afterlife. It’s considered very bad luck to do so, or perhaps she’ll think that you wish her dead.

Russian women love flowers. They love flowers more than American women, I suspect. You just can’t give her flowers in even numbers (that includes 12). Stick with odd numbers (1,3,5,7 and 9). So if you have in your heart to give a dozen roses, stick with 11 instead; I wouldn’t try giving thirteen either since I’m pretty sure that’s also an unlucky number in Russia.

This is the one Russian custom that I fear American men will miss out on to their detriment if they haven’t done their research in understanding Russia customs and traditions. Can a man possibly salvage the transgression by explaining that a dozen roses are a very romantic gift in America? Honestly, I don’t know. She may even be forgiving of a foreigner who isn’t aquainted with such knowledge, but the moment of romance that you were trying to set up as a man simply won’t happen and your efforts will be in vain nevertheless. So I wouldn’t take the chance of giving any other number of roses accept for odd numbers.

Stick with red roses, it’s the color associated with love and passion. You may feel like getting creative and distinguishing yourself by getting roses in different colors, but this may convey a message that you don’t want to send. Stick with red only when it comes to roses. You can play around with colors of other flowers in floral arrangements but not with roses. Keep it simple.

Don’t forget Woman’s Day!

Russian women will always love receiving flowers on holidays and her birthday. Valentine’s Day is another holiday that has become popular in Russia also. But there is one holiday you must absolutely never forget. It’s a holiday that isn’t really observed in the West so you might miss it. It is Woman’s Day and it is celebrated on March 8 in all FSU countries and even many former Communist countries.

The closest analogous holiday in America would be Mother’s Day, but Woman’s Day is even more of a big deal. Men in Russia will go out and buy flowers and gifts for all the women in their lives. Not just the mothers but daughters, cousins and girlfriends. The women get to relax on this day while the men take care of the house and do other special favors.

Do not forget Woman’s Day. You have been warned! Fortunately, for the Western man, there are international flower delivery services on the internet that you can use to order flowers for delivery. All you need is an address. If you don’t have her address, (it’s possible if you’re just starting to see each other) make sure you have her cell phone number at least. The delivery service might be able to call and confirm the address with your lady. The international services make this very easy and convenient, so Google for a couple of them and see who has reasonable prices and selections. It’s so easy you have no excuse.